Glyphobet writes "I've largely stopped reporting bugs to Ubuntu because of the condescending and dismissive attitude from their developers. Until Ubuntu's bug management culture starts to change, people like me, who can actually help make Ubuntu better, will be less and less likely to contribute."

A problem with open source is that a lot of developers only cares about functionality that they use themselves. With unpaid contributers, this is understandable since they donate their own time. And we can't complain about how people use their own time :-)

Perhaps they could introduce some sort of karma system, where each bug you fix adds to your score. The number of points could be a combination of severity, age and complexity.

A trivial bug doesn't give many points when it is reported, but will accumulate extra points for each month it is not fixed.

This might give them added incentive to also do the boring jobs. When the bugs are not interesting, perhaps the extra recognition will help?

Perhaps they could introduce some sort of karma system, where each bug you fix adds to your score.

What is this? Kindergarten?

Yeah pretty much. Sadly, enough most people, especially some of the basement dwelling youth that are starting to get into open sourced programming, do have that kindergarten mentality.

This might give them added incentive to also do the boring jobs.

I seriously doubt the people with the required skills would care about some abstract karma points.

Actually there are a surprising amount of people who work on open source programs with the single-minded purpose of getting that "Look at what I did." feeling when they fix a bug or write and release a useful program to the world. That's kind of how the whole thing started, bragging rights on who could program better.

A problem with open source is that a lot of developers only cares about functionality that they use themselves. With unpaid contributers, this is understandable since they donate their own time. And we can't complain about how people use their own time :-)

Perhaps they could introduce some sort of karma system, where each bug you fix adds to your score. The number of points could be a combination of severity, age and complexity.

A trivial bug doesn't give many points when it is reported, but will accumulate extra points for each month it is not fixed.

This might give them added incentive to also do the boring jobs. When the bugs are not interesting, perhaps the extra recognition will help?

a lot do get paid for there work, but look at rpm5.org Jeff doesnt get paid for his work on rpm5